Allergy testing.....again!

Well it is that time of year again where we get Carter's allergies tested.  Why?  I have no idea.  The numbers are meaningless and the whole profession seems to have no answers.  You ask one allergy doctor something you will get a different answer than another doctor.  But we have reason to believe that Carter's egg allergy is getting better and therefore we test him to see if the number is dropping and if it is low enough to do an egg challenge.

Well the good new is his egg number did drop. It dropped from 2.95 to 1.06.  Normal is less than 0.65.  The  funny thing is he is still at a moderately high range.  Even though when he was first tested he was 23!  The best thing about his egg allergy is that he can eat everything but an egg itself.  So it really doesn't effect our lives too much, thank God!  We know we are blessed that he can eat all baked goods which makes preschool and parties a lot easier to deal with.  However in saying that, the number really doesn't matter.  He could still have an anaphalctic reaction at his number, or he could just break out in a few hives.  Or he could even be able to eat eggs.  Some of the numbers are false positives.  So  in good news, we are hoping that by next year he will be able to eat eggs without any problem.  

Peanuts. Our nemesis. I don't even know how you can be allergic to something you have never had. (well when he was first tested he had never had them)  Carter's peanut number has done weird things.  If I remember correctly when he was first tested he was at a 9.  Then the next time he was tested he was a 6. Then he went up to 7.49.

For no reason what so ever, his number jumped to 18.9 this time.  He has never ingested any peanut product since the last test or had any sort of reaction.  We have no idea what this means except for the fact that he probably will not fall into the 20% that grow out of their peanut allergy now that he has had this high number.  (just for reference the numbers go from 0 to >100, but anything above a 1 is considered high in the allergy world.  Even though we won't do much changing based on these numbers we will be more diligent in keeping the epi pen around because this number (according to the really messed up research that has been done) gives him a 95% chance of having an anaphylactic reaction if he happens to eat peanuts.  We are thankful that he seems to not be so severe that he can eat plain M&M's and things that are made in a facility that also processes peanuts.  He also seems to do ok being in the same room as someone eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.  I just hope that it stays that way.  We pray that this is the case and we also put a lot of hope into the fact that research says they should have a cure in 3-5 years.  

I know that Carter's allergies could be A LOT worse and that we are very lucky.  It is just hard to deal with something that no one has any answers to.  We just have no idea what the future holds and no doctor can even predict what might happen.  The hardest part about being a parent of child with food allergies is worrying every time you leave them if the people watching over them know the seriousness of the allergy and will they protect him like you would protect him?  My biggest fear is that he will have an anaphylactic reaction without me around and he won't have his epipen or someone won't know how to use it.  I know that for my son to have a normal life I have to let go, and let him take responsibility, or let others take responsibility for him.  It is just scary.  Food allergies are scary.